Educação Física promovendo qualidade de vida durante a pandemia da Covid-19: resultados do estudo “ Exercilar”

Abstract

Measures to prevent COVID-19 by restricting people, such as lockdown, distancing and social isolation, have changed the ways of life of the global population, directly affecting satisfaction and quality of life. The objective of the study will be to evaluate the effect of 6 weeks of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) "home-based" on the quality of life of people aged 18 to 55 years recovered from COVID-19. This project is part of the research entitled “Effect of 12 Weeks of Different Types of ‘Home Based’ Exercises in Adults Recovered from COVID-19”. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of HIIT training for 6 weeks in adults. Participants were randomly allocated (1:1 type) and blindly by an expert not involved in the research. HIIT training corresponded to a circuit of high-intensity physical and functional exercises (= 90% of VO2max.). The training intensity was controlled by the Heart Rate Monitor application, monitoring of participants in the intervention group was offered via WhatsApp. Participants were assessed before the intervention and after 6 weeks of the training program. The control group participated only in the evaluations. Quality of life was assessed using the Short Form Health Survey (SF12) instrument. Sociodemographic information (gender, age, marital status and education) was also included to characterize the studied sample. Statistical analysis Data tabulation was performed using Excel software and analysis using SPSS version 24.0, adopting a significance level of 5% in all analyses. Absolute and relative frequencies, mean and standard deviation, minimum and maximum values were calculated to distinguish the baseline sample. Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare pre- and post-intervention time points. As a result, we had a significant effect on the mental score (p=0.040) of quality of life among the intervention participants, in addition to the improvement in general values of the students participating in the intervention (p=0.055). The results show how much physical activity can positively influence quality of life, even more so in troubled periods such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are still few studies addressing home-based physical exercise interventions in people recovered from SARS-COV 2.